1. Field
This disclosure relates generally to configuration of network devices.
2. Background
Network gateways, such as WIFI routers, are now found in many households.
Network gateways used in personal environments, such as homes, are becoming increasingly sophisticated. Home network gateways provide WIFI and other network access and connectivity to nearby users (e.g., users located within the range of a home WIFI or Bluetooth network, and users connected to another type of home local area network) and implement firewall and monitoring policies. The complexity of network gateways continues to grow as their capabilities and the number of devices to which they provide network access keeps growing.
Users who own these network gateways have varied levels of skill with respect to controlling these devices, and often do not have the necessary knowledge and/or the inclination to perform the setup and configuration recommended for the devices. Improper configuration or management of these gateways can lead to poor user experiences, poor quality of service of the various network services made available through the gateway, and security and other risks associated with unauthorized access to the gateway or the associated network connections.
It is often the case that users other than the owner of these network gateways have a need to access the home network or a remote network through the home network gateway. However, conventional approaches that allow users other than the owner (referred to herein as “visiting users” or “visitors”) to access networks through the network gateway requires that the owner provides the visitor with a key and the visitor goes through the tedious process of manually configuring the keys on the visitor's client device in order to access the network gateway. All users, including the owner, who access the network use the same keys, and no differentiation is generally made in the service provided by the network gateway based on user identity. In order to prevent a user who has previously accessed the home network from accessing the network again, the password of the network is changed. Such changes in the password can cause additional configurations changes causing numerous devices to be reconfigured.
Moreover, when multiple users are accessing networks through the same network gateway, conventional approaches do not offer a convenient mechanism by which users can be differentiated in order to provide different qualities of service.
The burdens placed upon the owner and visitor to manually configure passwords or keys in order to allow the visitor access to the network gateway are tedious and can be improved. Moreover, a capability to configure different levels of service based upon visitor identity may be desired.